Friday

Have you ever wondered why so many Muslim men are dedicated to killing Americans? Or why so many are willing to blow themselves up to kill Israelis? Or why they are so committed to blowing up random people in Bali, London, Madrid, etc.?

Orthodox Muslims are doing this all over the world, attacking westerners and their own fellow Muslims alike. Why?

Because of memes. A meme is anything that can be copied from one mind to another. The custom of shaking hands, for example, is a meme. A melody is a meme. A recipe for lemonade is a meme. Even the word "meme" is a meme, which has just made a copy of itself in your mind.

One of the characteristics of memes is they can evolve because some memes are better at making copies of themselves than other memes. They get more copies of themselves into other minds.

So memes compete with each other and evolve. Part of the way they become better at making copies is to join together with other memes in a mutually-supporting group. A combination of memes (known as a "memeplex") is often able to get itself into more minds than single memes.

From a memetics standpoint, a religion is a memeplex — collection of memes. One of the memes might be, for example, "This is a holy book."

And the holy book itself is, of course, a collection of memes.

Let's look at how religious memeplexes evolve and compete. To begin with, let's assume we already have a religion established. It already has a holy book and millions of people already have a copy of the memeplex in their minds.

And then there is a slight variation.

The original memeplex had a "live and let live" attitude, and never tried to encourage its followers to get converts. But then someone comes up with the idea that if you can persuade a non-believer to become a believer, you earn some sort of spiritual merit. You are saving souls, and your chances of getting into heaven are better.

Okay, now you have two variations on the same memeplex: One says "live and let live." The other motivates people to spread the memeplex to others.

After a thousand years, which of the two variations will have more copies in the minds of people? I'm betting on the motivated-to-spread-it version.

Let's assume the motivated memeplex is more successful. Does that mean it makes people happier? Or more successful in life? Or have healthier children? No. Just because a memeplex is successful doesn't mean it benefits any of the people holding the memeplex.

The same is true in genetics. Contrary to common sense, a successful gene doesn't necessarily benefit the organism. It is "successful" in the sense that it has made lots of copies of itself and is found in many organisms. But it may actually be harmful for the organism. For example, if there is a gene for alcoholism, and if drinking causes someone to have more children (or start having children younger) than someone who doesn't drink, over thousands of years, the alcoholism gene would be more successful than the non-alcoholism gene even though it is bad for each individual person carrying the gene.

In the same way, the success of a meme doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the person holding that meme.

If a memeplex says it is wrong to use contraception and wrong to masturbate, that memeplex would get itself copied into more minds than an identical memeplex without these two added memes (assuming offspring would be taught the memeplex too).

So the hapless believer, trying to follow the rules and be a good person by avoiding the evils of contraception and masturbation, would have more children than he might want or could afford, causing him to work overtime to support them — working two jobs if he must. It sends him to an early grave, but puts more copies of that memeplex into the minds of future generations than someone without those two memes.

So the memeplex has used the man for its own purposes, or at least that's one legitimate way to look at it. And it's a way that sheds new light on Islamic terrorism, which is why I've spent so much time explaining this idea.

The three elements that make for a successful meme are fecundity, fidelity, and longevity. In other words, if a meme makes lots of copies of itself, copies itself accurately, and lasts long enough to make copies into other minds, it is a successful meme. All else being equal, the meme that makes more copies, or copies with more fidelity, or lasts longer in the mind, will always out-compete a meme that does any of these less effectively.

Now, with that understanding, here's my point: If you were going to deliberately design a combination of memes with the purpose of making a memeplex that could eventually dominate the world — one that would eventually out-compete every other memeplex — you would be hard-pressed to do better than Islam.

Let's look at some of the individual memes within the Islamic memeplex:

1. A standardized version of the memeplex is written down, which makes for perfect replication fidelity. This is something basic to several religions and isn't an Islamic invention, but it is an important factor in the success of Islam.

Something only transmitted orally can change over time, but something written will be identical a thousand years from now, and with modern printing presses, can be reproduced in the millions, giving it enormous fecundity and fidelity.

2. The Koran includes instructions for its own spread. It tells believers they must spread Islam. It is their holy duty to bring Mohammad's warnings and Islamic law to every corner of the world.

3. The memeplex includes instructions for its own preservation, protection, and replication fidelity. The Koran, the most important of the Islamic holy books, directly tells its followers that they can never change or modify or "modernize" any of the teachings within the memeplex. It is a capital sin to try to do so. The memeplex ensures its own preservation this way.

These first three memes are pretty standard for several successful religions. But now it gets interesting...

4. Islam commands its followers to create a government that supports it. This may be one of the most brilliant innovations in Islam. Islam is the only religion that uses it. Other groups of religious people have had political aspirations, but no other major religious group orders its followers — as a religious duty — to create a government that follows its own system of law.

Islam has a system of law, called Shari'a, and all Muslims are obligated to continually work toward making their government — wherever they are — follow it. Because of some of the other memes added to Islam, you will see that this political addition to the memeplex has significant consequences. I think this is Islam's most brilliant innovation, and also the most terrifying to non-Muslims.

5. Permission to spread the memeplex by war. This is another brilliant innovation. Although some other religions have spread themselves using force, they had very little justification from their own religious doctrines.

Not so with Islam. Expanding by conquest is very much accepted and encouraged by the memeplex. The poor non-Muslims not living in an Islamic state need to be saved from the sin of following laws other than Allah's. If they won't voluntarily change their laws to Shari'a, then it is the duty of Muslim warriors to insist. The world cannot be at peace until every government on earth follows the laws of Allah.

Mohammad's own experience showed the example — an example, says the Koran, that every Muslim should follow. For ten years Mohammad tried to spread Islam by peaceful means. After ten years he had a paltry 150 converts. But he changed tactics and started using warfare, slaughter, executions, and assassination, and in a relatively short time, he converted tens of thousands, and after his followers died, they used the same tactics and converted millions.

The use of warfare combines powerfully with the instruction to create an Islamic state. So Islam spread quickly as their armies got bigger. They conquered and set up Islamic states, most of which have lasted to this day, and as you'll see, the laws within an Islamic state make it very advantageous to convert to Islam.

This is one of the most effective methods ever invented for getting a memeplex into huge numbers of minds. It's a method of control and indoctrination similar to those used successfully in communist and totalitarian states. But as you discover below, Islam makes unique use of the power of the law to enforce complete conversion to the memeplex.

6. Lands must be conquered. Lands that Islam has lost must be reconquered, like Spain and Israel, for example. The Islamic empire must continually expand. Contraction is bad, expansion is good. So if a land was once Islamic and now it is not, that is contraction, and must be remedied.

According to this meme, the earth is Allah's. If there are parts of the earth not following Islamic law, it is the duty of the faithful to gain control of that land and establish Shari'a. It is a sin to let it be.

7. The memeplex provides for new soldiers by allowing polygamy. A Muslim man can marry up to four wives, and he can have sex with as many slave girls as he wishes.

The Koran especially encourages men to marry widows. This is an important meme to add if you are going to be losing a lot of soldiers in war. You need some way of replenishing your army. You don't want the memeplex to die out from a lack of offspring.

8. It is a punishable offense to criticize Islam. You can see why this one is a good supporting meme for the memeplex. It helps curb any memes that would reduce the authority of Islamic memes. This one, like many of the others, is good for the memeplex, but bad for people. This one limits freedom of speech.

9. You can't leave Islam once you're in. This is an interesting one. It is actually illegal in Islamic states to convert out of Islam. This is a critical part of Shari'a law. Someone who has rejected Islam who was once a Muslim is an "apostate." This is a crime and a sin, and the punishment for it is death (and eternal damnation in hell thereafter).

Obviously, you can see why this meme has been included in the memeplex, but this one has actually caused Islam a problem because those who are following Islam to the letter consider more "moderate" Muslims (those who want to ignore or alter the more violent passages of the Koran) to be apostates. Since the punishment for apostates is death, fundamentalist Muslims are fighting modernizing Muslims all over the world, and keeping many rebellious, modernizing Muslims from speaking up for fear of death.

Every time a group of Muslims decides that maybe Islam should be updated for the 21st century and maybe women should have some rights or maybe the government should be more democratic, the devout Muslims call them apostates and try to kill them.

The memeplex is protecting its own fidelity (the original memeplex cannot be altered). This is not good for the organisms (the Muslim human beings), but it's great for the memeplex.

Another meme in Shari'a law says it's against the law for anyone to try to convert a Muslim to another religion. Again, this is a meme to help protect the fidelity of the memeplex.

10. Islam must be your first allegiance. This is a great meme to add if the goal is world domination. You are a Muslim first, before any allegiance you give to your family, your tribe, or your country.

This does two things: It causes a unity of people across borders, and it allows the group to grow bigger than any other entity. In other words, the "Nation of Islam" can grow bigger than any country, no matter how large (which gives the group a massive numerical advantage).

11. The only guarantee of a man getting into heaven is if he dies fighting for Islam. This is a great meme for creating fearless, enthusiastic warriors, especially given the vivid description of the sensuous delights of heaven.

A Muslim man has a chance of getting to heaven if he is a good Muslim, but it is not guaranteed. However, if he dies while fighting for Islam, he is guaranteed to get in, and that's the only thing he can do to guarantee it.

12. You must read the Koran in Arabic. This unites believers by language, and language is a very powerful unifying phenomenon. For added incentive to learn Arabic, another meme says you can't go to heaven unless you pray in Arabic.

So all Muslims all over the world share a language. This makes it easier to coordinate far-reaching campaigns of protest, political pressure, and war. I doubt if Mohammad foresaw this possibility, but this meme is brilliant, even if it was an accident.

13. You must pray five times a day. This is one of the five "pillars" — that is, one of the five central practices of a Muslim. Within an Islamic state, it is enforced by law. Every Muslim must pray five times a day. The practice helps the memeplex dominate a Muslim's life, infusing his daily rhythm with Islam.

It would be impossible to forget anything you deliberately do so often. Five times a day, every day, a Muslim must bow down and pray to Allah.

Research has shown the more effort a person expends for a cause, the more he believes in it. So this is a good way to eventually make believers out of people who became Muslims through coercion.
Islam completely takes over every aspect of Muslims' lives. Not only are they required to pray five times a day, they have to go through a washing ritual beforehand. Islam dictates the laws, and the laws cover many public and private behaviors. In an Islamic state, it is impossible to be a casual Muslim.

14. The prayers involve moving together in time. When Muslims pray, they all face the same direction, they bow down, get on their hands and knees, and put their face on the mat, all in unison, and then rise back up. Again and again.

When people move together in time, whether dancing or marching or praying, it creates a physical and emotional bond between them. That's why all military training involves close-order drill (marching in unison), even though it has been a long time since military groups have actually marched into combat. There is no longer a need for the skill, but all military training has retained this method because it is so effective at creating a strong feeling of unity between soldiers (read more about that).

The same is true of any physical movements people make in unison.

15. A woman is in a thoroughly subordinate position. This meme really helps support the war meme. If women had too much influence, they'd try to curb the fighting. Women in general don't like to send their husbands and sons off to war. But if women have no say, then the rest of the memes can express themselves without interference. By subordinating women, the memeplex prevents their effective vote against war, violence, and conquest.

The rules and laws (memes) within Islam that keep women subordinate are numerous. For example, she is not allowed to leave her house unless she is accompanied by a male relative. Under Islamic law, a woman is forbidden to be a head of state or a judge. She can only inherit half of what a man can inherit. In court, her testimony is only worth half of a man's. She is not allowed to choose where she will live or who she will marry. She is not allowed to marry a non-Muslim or divorce her husband. Her husband, however, can divorce her with a wave of his hand. And according to Shari'a, he can (and should) beat her if she disobeys him.

All of these rules keep her subordinate, which helps keep the war machine going unimpeded by domestic conflict.

16. The only way a woman can get into heaven for sure is if her husband is happy with her when she dies. When I read about this one, I thought, "Mohammad, you are a crafty one."

This meme obviously helps with the subjugation of women. It motivates her to subjugate herself. It gives her a strong motivation to subordinate her wishes to her husband's, because while she might have a chance to get into heaven if she's a good Muslim, the only way she can guarantee she will go to heaven (and avoid eternal suffering in hell) is to make sure her husband is happy with her when she dies.

17. Allah gives Himself permission to edit his own work. This is an interesting one. The Koran was written in sections (Mohammad's revelations) over a period of 23 years. The circumstances of Mohammad's life and his religion changed quite a bit over those 23 years. It says in the Koran that if a passage written later contradicts an earlier passage, then the later one is the better one.

One of the memes in the Koran is "this is the word of Allah." People had already memorized his earlier revelations, so Mohammad couldn't just change his revelations. It would look a little strange to go change anything that Allah already said.

But with this new meme — that later revelations abrogated or nullified any earlier revelations it contradicted — Allah's methods could change as Mohammad found more effective ideas.

In his first ten years of peacefully preaching, Mohammad only managed to win 150 followers. But as a military leader and violent conqueror, he was able to convert all of Arabia. The peaceful ways were too slow. Conversion by conquering and establishing Shari'a was much faster and more efficient. So later violent, intolerant verses abrogated (nullified) the earlier peaceful, tolerant passages.

18. The Koran uses the carrot and stick to reinforce behavior. Throughout the book are vivid descriptions of hell, where sinners and non-Muslims will have to drink boiling, stinking water, will be thrown face down into a raging fire, and will be there for eternity, suffering endless torments in agony.

There are also vivid descriptions of heaven. In heaven you'll wear green silk robes and recline on plush couches. Trees will shade you, fruit will dangle nearby. You'll have tasty food and refreshing drinks served in silver goblets. To have a chance of achieving this, you must be a devout Muslim. To guarantee it, you must die in jihad (for men) or make sure your husband is always happy with you (for women).

19. It provides a huge and inspiring goal. Leaders of countries or companies or religions have all discovered that you can get the most motivation and enthusiasm from your followers if you provide them with an expansive vision. An enormous goal. In the Islamic memeplex, the goal calls for a continuous effort to expand the domain of Islamic law until all the world has submitted to Islam.

Many religions have the goal of converting everyone, but Islam has a method available nobody else has: To expand by seizing and converting governments to Shari'a.

Once the whole world is Islamic, peace will reign. That's why even terrorists can say with complete sincerity, "Islam is a religion of peace."

The Koran says it is best if non-believers accept Islam and become Muslims without force. But if they refuse, then you must fight them and conquer them and save their poor souls by insisting they live by the laws of Allah.

Once all countries are conquered, the world will be at peace. Therefore, Islam is a religion of peace.

It is an enormous and inspiring goal, and a strongly unifying purpose. It creates motivated, enthusiastic followers.

20. Non-Muslims must pay a large tax. Once Muslims conquer a country and convert the government to Islamic law, any non-Muslims have the choice between becoming Muslim or becoming a dhimmi. Dhimmis are allowed to practice their non-Muslim religion if they pay the jizya (a tax). If they convert to Islam, they no longer have to pay a tax, so there is a practical incentive to convert.

But another aspect of this makes it a brilliant meme. The tax takes money away from the non-Muslims and their competing memeplexes and gives that money to support Islam. This is pure genius!

The income from these taxes (usually a 25% income tax) helped fund the Islamic conquests during the first two major jihads. They conquered vast lands, most of them already filled with Christians and Jews, many of whom did not convert at first, and their jizya poured huge sums of money into the Islamic war machine.

Eventually, the numbers of Christians and Jews dwindled down as they converted or escaped, until now, in most Islamic countries, Jews and Christians are very small minorities.

The tax-the-non-Muslims meme helps the Islamic memeplex make more copies of itself by suppressing competing religious memeplexes and financially supporting the Islamic memeplex.

Several memes within Shari'a law extend this effect. Non-Muslims are not allowed to build any new houses of worship. They're not even allowed to repair already-existing churches or synagogues. This puts the houses of worship of any competing memeplex in a state of permanent decline. Brilliant.

Also, non-Islamic prayers cannot be spoken within earshot of a Muslim — again, preventing Muslims from being infected by a competing memeplex. No public displays of any symbols of another faith may be shown either.

All of this prevents the spread of any competing memeplex, and makes competing religions die out over time. That's why today there are so many "Muslim countries." Almost every other country in the world is made up of many different religions.

One added meme makes it that much easier for Muslims to dominate non-Muslims within an Islamic state: Non-Muslims are not allowed to own weapons of any kind. To subjugate a people, all dictatorial rulers in the history of the world have done the same thing: Disarm the subjugated people. They are much easier to manage, less dangerous, and less capable of upending the status quo.

21. A Muslim is forbidden to make friends with an infidel. A Muslim is allowed to pretend to be a friend, but in his heart he must never actually be a friend to a non-Muslim. This is one of the best protections Islam has against Muslims leaving the faith.

In any other religion (except Islam) conversions to a new religion are made because a friend introduced it. This rule effectively prevents that. This meme effectively prevents competition from other memeplexes.

22. The Koran counsels the use of deceit when dealing with infidels. Mohammad instructed one of his followers to lie if he had to (in order to assassinate one of Mohammad's enemies). The principle was clear: If it helps Islam, it's okay to deceive non-Muslims.

This principle has served Islamic goals very well through history. And it serves those goals today. You can watch on the DVD, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, real-life examples of Islamic leaders saying one thing in English for the western press, and saying something entirely different to their own followers in Arabic a few days later.

Deceiving the enemy is always useful in war, and Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world until the whole world follows Shari'a law. All non-Muslims living in non-Islamic states are enemies. So deceiving westerners is acceptable. Even encouraged if it can forward the goals of the spread of Islam.

And so we have the strange phenomenon covered by Steven Emerson in Terrorists Among Us, where organizations in America were ostensibly raising money for orphans, but really giving the money to terrorists. They deceived good-hearted western infidels into giving money to organizations that were actively killing western infidels. As it says in the Koran, "War is deceit." This meme gives Islam a tremendous advantage over memeplexes that encourage indiscriminate truthfulness.

23. Islam must always be defended. This meme is a primary linchpin that gives justification for war with almost anybody, as you'll see in the meme below. After the enemy is defeated, of course, Muslims are required to establish an Islamic state.

24. The memeplex instructs on the use of pretext to start wars. The Koran devotes a lot of time complaining about people who did not support Mohammad when he first started his religion, with Allah often condemning them to torment in hell in the hereafter.

Mohammad was rather pushy and insistent with his religion, and when others felt intruded upon and protested, Mohammad took that to mean they were trying to stop Allah's holy prophet from bringing the revealed word of Allah to the world, so he was justified to fight them and destroy them as Allah's enemies. This is a demonstration of the principle of pretext.

Non-Muslims of the world need urgently to become aware of this principle. Of all the memes in the memeplex, this is the most dangerous to the West because it removes our natural self-preserving defenses. The use of pretext tends to make the West defenseless against the Islamic invasion now underway. Muslim terrorists are not naive people. They are smart, educated, well-funded, and being used by a very clever memeplex.

The invasion of the West is underway, and it is being done so cleverly, most westerners don't even know it is happening. (Read more about their 20-year plan to overthrow the government of the United States. Also, read about the Shariatization of Europe.)

Pretext means you need only the barest excuse to begin hostilities. It means you're actually looking for an excuse, and even trying to provoke others into striking the first blow — of "starting" the hostilities.

If the only way to get to heaven is dying while fighting for Islam, you need war. And if it is your holy duty to make all governments use Shari'a law, you need to conquer those governments. But you don't really want to look like the aggressor. Appearances count. All throughout the Koran, Mohammad tries to justify his aggression as defending Islam.

The Koran repeats over seventy times that followers of Islam should use Mohammad as a model and imitate him. So Muslims the world over try to find or create grievances, so they can get a holy war started, so they can fight and die in Allah's cause and help make the world ruled by Allah's laws.

And because of the rise of multiculturalism (respect for all other cultures) in the West, the use of pretext convinces people in the West who are unfamiliar with Islam. Many people think al Qaeda is angry at the West for having troops in Saudi Arabia. That's merely a pretext. They want all non-Muslims out of the Middle East. Then they say they will cease hostilities. It is a ridiculous and impossible goal, so they are justified in permanent war against the West.

And it's surprising that so many westerners are fooled by this one because it flies in the face of a fundamental western principle: Equality. What Osama bin Laden is saying is infidels are so undeserving, their very presence defiles their holy places. Wow. What does that say about the filthy infidel?

Why doesn't this kind of racism or prejudice or infidelphobia (or whatever you want to call it) outrage more westerners? Instead, many think we ought to pull out of the Middle East so these poor offended terrorists aren't so angry with us any more!

The principle of pretext is to provoke a hostile reaction and then use the hostile reaction as a reason to escalate hostilities. It's the same method schoolyard bullies have used for probably thousands of years: "What are you looking at? Hey, you bumped into me! Now you're going to pay! Nobody disrespects me!"

25. The explicit use of double standards. Islam has one standard for Muslims, and a different standard for non-Muslims, which always gives the advantage to Muslims and provides incentives to convert.

For example, Islam must be spread by its believers, wherever they are. But when other religions try to spread their own memeplex, Muslims are supposed to see it as an aggression against Islam — an act of aggression that must be "defended." Remember, Islam must always be defended.

Here's another example: The Islamic fundamentalists of Saudi Arabia are pouring money into building mosques all over the free world. But according to Shari'a law (Islamic law), which is the law in Saudi Arabia, no non-Muslim religious structures are allowed to be built. However, Muslims all over the world protest loudly and violently when anyone in Europe or America resists the building of more mosques in their countries.

They don't see the irony in it. They don't feel strange having such an obvious double standard. They are, after all, Allah's followers and everyone else is deluded. Fairness and equality with such unworthy infidels would seem very out of place. A double standard seems completely appropriate from that perspective.

The double standard principle is part of the memeplex, and it has been a great advantage to the spread of Islam (and the suppression of competing memeplexes).

26. It is forbidden to kill a Muslim (except for a just cause). It is not forbidden to kill an infidel. This causes a bond between Muslims, fear in non-Muslims, and motivation to become Muslim. This is also another example of an explicit Islamic double standard.

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We might admire the brilliance of the Islamic memeplex in an abstract, intellectual sort of way, but it is terrifyingly real. Millions of people try to follow these memes to the letter. And their belief in the memeplex is strongly supported by the side-effects of Shari'a law. By making the government and laws ruled by Islam, the memeplex applies two powerful principles of influence: social proof, and authority.

Everyone practices the religion in an Islamic state (or they are flogged, taxed, or killed) and no one can criticize it, not friend-to-friend, and not through any media. The psychological impact of this is enormous. Three generations later, it would be almost impossible for any Muslim living in that state to think outside of Islam. The authority and social proof would be overwhelming.

If you were trying to come up with a memeplex to take over the world, I don't know if you could do better than Islam.

Of course, just because I admire the genius of the memeplex doesn't mean I'm in favor of it. As a non-Muslim, I am wholeheartedly against it. Remember, the success of a meme has nothing to do with making people happy or healthy. Memetic success only means it propagates well.

The same is true for genes. A successful gene is one that gets the most copies of itself into future generations. The genes making up a deadly virus may kill millions of people and cause untold misery, but from a genetics point of view, the virus is genetically successful.

Genes don't care about people. They don't try to make us happy. They are cold and indifferent to our plight.

Same with memes. A memeplex will use up and spit out human lives in the service of its propagation, indifferent to the pain, misery, or death it causes.

A memeplex, well-drilled into someone's head and reinforced by the powerful authority and social proof of his whole society, can cause him to blow himself up just to kill others for the fulfillment of a fantasy goal of ultimately attaining world peace and the triumph of Allah (and a harem of 72 dark-eyed voluptuous beauties devoted to his every wish).

The Islamic memeplex is formidable. It is a force to be reckoned with and we ignore it at our peril. It has already consumed the minds of one and a half billion people, and it is the youngest of the major religions. And it is growing.

And yet, I don't think the situation is hopeless. Many Muslims now living in Islamic states are trapped and would defect from the memeplex if it were safe to do so.

And even those who like being Muslims can be released from the hold the memeplex has on their minds. Like suddenly "coming to" when you're being hypnotized, I think an understanding of memetics itself can help undermine the hypnotic effect of the religious beliefs.

And the first thing we in the multicultural and tolerant West need to be aware of is the formidable memeplex threatening to overtake us. The memeplex takes advantage of our tolerance and our freedom so as to ultimately eliminate it.

This is an ideological war, so the ideas in the heads of your fellow westerners makes all the difference. And you can help turn the tide. Find ways to introduce these ideas to your fellow westerners. Here are a few ideas to help you.

And we can help Muslims trapped in Islamic countries find their way to snapping out of their trance. Muslims have submitted to Islam, many of them because they felt they had no choice (or their parents or grandparents felt they had no choice). They are being used by the memeplex. Individual Muslims can free themselves from Islam, and many have, thanks to the web sites like FaithFreedom.org, and books like Leaving Islam.

I would suggest we not judge Muslims too harshly. Many of them are in some way rebelling against some of the memes, but out of custom, guilt, or because their Islamic government violently enforces the rules, they practice the rest of the religion.

"Muslims are the first victims of Islam," wrote E. Renan. "Many times I have observed in my travels in the Orient, that fanaticism comes from a small number of dangerous men who maintain the others in the practice of religion by terror. To liberate the Muslim from his religion is the best service that one can render him."

Fortunately, Muslims the world over have rebelled against this rigid and restricting memeplex, and that's the only reason Islam has not already taken over the world: Good people, coerced for generations to be Muslims, have slowed its spread by ignoring (probably with some guilt) the worst parts of the Koran.

It would be nice if we didn't have such a memeplex to deal with. It would be nice if we could all just get along. But sometimes things like this just have to be faced and handled, regardless of what we might rather be doing.

If you are a non-Muslim and you want to get started helping to curb the spread of the Islamic memeplex and the terrorism it produces, the best thing you can do is learn more about Islam and then speak up to your fellow westerners.

You will be shocked at how little most people know about Islam. And they will be shocked to find out. And when enough westerners know about it, Islamic tactics like pretext and deceit will be seen for what they are, and will no longer make us defenseless. When we know more about the founder (the one all Muslims should imitate) and the goals of the memeplex, our collective actions can effectively thwart their plans. Our collective grasp of the real situation will bring more rational changes to our laws and policies (such as our current immigration policies).

The key is what happens in one-on-one conversations throughout the West.

When you hear people saying things like, "We should pull out of Iraq," or "We're just in it for the oil," or "Islam is a religion of peace," that is a time to speak up, calmly and simply. Tell them about the Islamic memeplex. Tell them what they don't know. Help them update their understanding of the situation. Do this wherever you go, and start now. The situation is urgent.

Many of the memes that help Islam spread are in your head and in the heads of your fellow westerners. That's the first place to start to fight against the viral spread of this clever memeplex.

The memes in your head (such as a blind faith in multiculturalism) are not the kind that will convert you into a Muslim, but they help the spread of Islam by taking down your defenses, and even encourages you to spread information that makes the West easier to defeat. You can play an important role in curbing the spread of the Islamic memeplex by speaking up within your own sphere of influence.

How? When you hear a meme, stop it from spreading. For example, "Actually, what they mean by 'Islam is a religion of peace' is that their mission is to make the whole world submit to the law of Allah (Shari'a), and once that is accomplished, there will be peace in the world. Therefore, Islam is a religion of peace. That's not really peace as we know it."

But to do this kind of inoculation, you have to have a pretty good handle on the memeplex itself. That will require some study.

I know you have other things to do, and you can't make this a full-time occupation, but I also know how serious this is, so it will require some sacrifice on your part.

I have created a curriculum of sorts. I tried to figure out what would be the material you could study that would give you the most critical knowledge with the smallest investment of time. Here is my curriculum:

If you listen to this program six times over the next year, you will have a grasp of the whole scope of the most important parts of the Islamic memeplex. If you only do one of the things I recommend here, this is the one you should do.

These DVDs are not only good for your own education, they are an excellent way to introduce the ideas to your fellow westerners. After you've watched them a couple of times, start loaning them out to friends. Keep them in circulation. Buy several copies if you need to.

You can stop the spread of the memes that make the West defenseless only by having a sufficient amount of knowledge.

When you hear someone imply that the United States brought the terrorists into existence with their bad foreign policy, how will you answer? One possible way to bring the whole thing into perspective is to give a brief history of jihad. During the last great jihad, Islamic forces conquered Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia, and they were at the Gates of Vienna in Austria in 1683, when their forces were finally defeated.

In other words, they were violently attacking and defeating westerners (non-Muslims) before the United States had even been created.

This is not to say some of the United States foreign policies have left much to be desired. But the Islamic memeplex has a longer history and has merely used political mistakes as a pretext to engage in warfare, as they have since the beginning. If you don't know any of this, it would be easy to see things as the terrorists want you to see them, and in fact, many westerners have bought the pretexts hook, line, and sinker.

Study that material, and start right away. The Islamic memeplex is out to take away freedoms and human rights. After millions of people have fought against tyranny and died to gain the rights and freedoms we enjoy today, here comes a pernicious memepex to take them away. And the Islamic memeplex could realistically succeed with terrifying brilliance.

Take action today. With every new understanding you have, and with every new certainty and clarity you gain, you will feel more bold in speaking up, and speaking up is exactly what you must do to fight a war of memes.

I have also created a version of the above article edited for readers who know nothing about Islam so you can share the information with a broader audience. Check it out: What Makes Islam So Successful?

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comments:

Brilliant !I have started another blog, basically to convey your messages' links and knowledge.Many thanks!http://acornsoftruth.blogspot.com/I have amended my 'missing links' as well. It is all working ok I think.all the best!

A Muslim who can die in battle against the infidels not only gets into heaven, but he can intercede with Allah on behalf of 70 of his relatives.

"Intercede" means to "plead on behalf of someone." So in other words, the martyr can ask that some of his relatives get into heaven too, even if they sinned a little, and Allah will listen to the martyr.

This makes him feel less selfish in his desire to die in battle. And it encourages his relatives to support him in his quest to die on the battlefield (assuming he would be more likely to intercede on behalf of supportive relatives than unsupportive relatives).

At the risk of sounding anti-Semitic, I want to say this: either American Jews are completely clueless about the internal struggle inside Islam or they are so cowardly, that they are even afraid to voice their opinion. Or maybe it's a combination of both.

Every time there is a development that involves radical Islam, be it a Mayor of New York attending an Islamist parade, DOJ's officials attending an Islamist conference, or a protester being sued for having the balls to expose an Islamist-sponsored event at an amusement park, the American Jewish community is as quiet as a church mouse. It's like it is not even there.

The effect of this silence is devastating. Not for the Jewish community, not yet. That time is still to come. The silence affects the American Muslim community. Every time moderate Muslims are ignored and Islamists are legitimized (by either direct support from government representatives or silent support of the ADL), radicals gain ground. In the current PC climate, moderate Muslims have pretty much no choice but to keep their mouths shut.

Luckily for us, not everyone in the Jewish community is like that. There are some Jews that are speaking out. One of them is Steven Emerson, who has been warning the West about the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism since before PanAm 103. Most of his current work is focused on exposing the radicals masquerading as the moderates – those radicals who are embraced by the DOJ and the Pentagon, by the mayor of New York Bloomberg (Rudy would never get into bed with terrorist supporters) and the Treasury Department, by the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, by the Congress and the White House.

There is a war of ideas within Islam, and moderate Muslims are losing. Most of Muslim clergy and Muslim establishment are paid for by the Wahhabis. Moderate Muslims are being run out of Mosques and community centers, and in many cases are physically threatened. Moderate Muslims have no place in the media or public debate, because the place reserved for Muslims is filled by Islamic radicals, who attempt to make criticizing anything Islamic a taboo. According to the Islamists, a Muslim can do no wrong.1. When a non-Muslim criticizes Islam or Muslims, he/she is an Islamophobe.2. When a Muslim criticizes Islam or Muslim, he/she is not a real Muslim, therefore see #1.

This is a tactic used by "moderate" Muslims, the darlings of the government and the media. But how can you call someone who praises bin Laden, or has ties to Hamas, or calls for the elimination of Israel, or wants to replace the Constitution with the Koran a moderate? They are anything but moderates, however nobody except for a few people like Steven Emerson seems to notice that. But even when the Emersons of America appeal to the public, they are often being dismissed as alarmists and racists. Well, they are anything, but. You don't have to be a clairvoyant to predict the future when it comes to expansion of radical Islam and extinction of moderate Muslims. All you need to do is get your heads out of the sand.

Why our government is so forgiving and forgetful when it comes to individuals or organizations with known terrorist ties and anti-American views is beyond me. Why the Jewish leaders are so timid when it comes to the subject of radical Islam is incomprehensible.

I thank God every day for people like Steven Emerson, because they are the last glimmer of hope for moderate Muslims.

Winston Churchill noted the 'mind-virus' nature of Islam 70 years before Dawkins when he compared Islam in men to the rabies virus in dogs: http://isupporttheresistance.blogspot.com/2007/11/taqiyya-lies-and-muslim-propagana.html

Also, I wonder if Mohammed knew what he was doing and was a 'memetic engineer' 1400 years before the term was invented:

Excellent insight into the mindset of Islam by the author although I wouldn't agree that the Islamic version of the meme(s) strategy, is actually brilliant at all.

In the final analysis, it's just a repetition of the usual old school-yard bully approach, albeit with a few convenient adaptions including ongoing enforced memes replications along the way which after all is 1,400 years along the way, ie, more than enough time to tweak one idea here and jettison another there.

No, a better approach would be to get at the true heart of the problem, ie, the far more nefarious memes of the current Marxist Liberal-led New World Order agenda, (Political Correctness being merely just one example of these particular memes, and which is the true culprit responsible for inviting this mortal enemy of freedom and liberty (Islam) right into our collective non-Muslim backyards, and the treasonists that comprise this Communist system who are, for the most part our own indigenous leaders, are the ones actually using this alien memeplex, ie, (Islam) as weapons against their own indigenous countrymen and thus nations.

I suggest that's where we start because without the orchestrated and engineered support and duplicitous approval of the Left, Islam would not have been able to attain the degree of colonisation of the West and accompanying appeasement it has achieved to-date.

My solution for eliminating both monsters at the same time would be far more far-reaching AND final.

We simply no longer have the luxury of time on our side to dally via the vehicle of word of mouth and intellectual exchange.

First, I think the Islamic Memeplex is brilliant in the same way that the AIDS virus is brilliant. It isn't really brilliant at all, but it is so perfectly adapted to infect and undermine defenses that you can't help but admire the design.

Second, I agree that the "New World Order" is the main problem. It's not that Islam is so strong, it's that a certain element in the free world undermines our defenses.

So what exactly IS your solution for eliminating both monsters at the same time? What is the decisive action you suggest? If I understand you correctly, one of the things we need is a list of the brilliant memes of the leftists/Marxists. In which case, if you will write it up, I will publish it here on CitizenWarrior.com.

Where Marxist Liberalism is concerned, its memes are based on inversions and perversion of the truth. All edicts contained in its Political Correctness doctrine are inversions of truth.

Multiculturalism! What precisely does the Left mean by this baseless and vacuous term of theirs?

There is no way, a collection of alien racial groups and their corresponding assortment of heritages, cultures, beliefs and social refineries herded into the one living space, can ever form a genuine or viable nation.

Why?

Because nations have at their root, a mono ethnicity thus common ancestry,lineage, language, heritage, culture and belief system which may or may not contain variations, but are still one-and-the-same at core. In other words, to correct an aberration of the above, you reinstate the core values of what constitutes a genuine nation and remove the rest.

Diversity

The Marxist Liberal notion of diversity is that's it's a progression from multiculturalism. What they deliberately obscure is the fact that the word diversity is merely a descriptive term pertaining to differences between objects or living things. It has nothing to do with social engineering and the construction of an artificial society which is in itself, the taking of words completely out of context and manipulating them to suit a specific purpose.

The above are only a couple of examples. There are others pertaining to moral aspects.

Marxist inversions such as homosexual marriage, unrestricted abortion, surrogacy, animal/human hybrid experimentations, mandated sex education including mind perversion of the extremely young (primary school age), to name but a few examples.

To counteract them, as with Islam, one first examines the underlying mindset and motivation(s) behind each dogma and secondly, places each up against truth and rationality. Truth and rationality will always triumph which is why totalitarian systems make the suppression of truth their primary objective.

Of course, the primary tools you outline are essential benign weapons in this fight, but I fear the damage done and still being done by Marxist Liberalism, may have already hobbled the ability of Western civilization to maintain itself by those means alone.

I disagree that a diverse group of ethnicities cannot join together. But I agree that the key component is shared core values. Many different ethnicities join the U.S. Marine Corps, for example, but they come out of basic training as loyal to each other, loyal to the Marine Corps, and loyal to the United States. Why? Because they were well indoctrinated in the same core values.

Blind multiculturalism is dangerous. But multiculturalism need not be blind. I have written about this previously here, here, and here. Countries in the free world could make sure aliens are well-indoctrinated into their core values before granting them citizenship.

And our core value of tolerance only needs the amendment, "mutual," to make it work. When tolerance goes too far and tolerates intolerance, we're all in trouble.

You wrote, "Of course, the primary tools you outline are essential benign weapons in this fight, but I fear the damage done and still being done by Marxist Liberalism, may have already hobbled the ability of Western civilization to maintain itself by those means alone."

I came across another meme that makes Islam so effective: No peace agreements can last longer than ten years. So in other words, no peace agreements. It is more accurate to call them temporary truces.

So, for example, Israel keeps making "peace agreements" with Islamic Palestinians, and none of them stick. In Islamic doctrine, the purpose of a peace agreement is to stop the infidels from attacking you while you gain military strength.

As you can see, that's quite different from what most of us think of as a "peace agreement." And because it is different, Islam keeps gaining ground, in one-way fashion like a ratchet, as non-Muslims continually get lured into making concessions in order to "restore the peace."

Citizen Warrior is a solid strategic thinker. I'd like to get better acquainted, but I will respect his anonymity. "Anonymous" might be a John Bircher or similar who sees the One-worlders and Marxists as the dominant conspiracy that encompasses or controls all other conspiracies. I view world politics as made up of many conspiracies of differing strengths. At different eras of history, different conspiracies are the threat du jour. Right now it is Islam. As to the relationship between Islam and Marxism (or One-worlders) -- Communism took a body blow with its 1989 implosion in eastern Europe. It is regaining strength, esp. in China. For the time being, the Communists are aiding and encouraging Muslims behind the scenes as in northwestern South America. "Whosoever is the enemy of my enemy is my temporary friend." So we have to keep one eye on world communism while we fight off the scimatars coming at us through the front door. Personally, I think that in a showdown between these two ogres, the Muslims will win as they did in Indonesia under Sukarno. I think that Citizen Warrior is right in concentrating on the Islamic threat for the nonce. I noticed that CitizenWarrior recommended The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic (Regina Orthodox Press, Boston, 2002) which is the bgest history of Islam that I have read. I think that a good history is essential to understanding any movement.

This is an excellent article, Citizen Warrior. I'm going to post a link to it when I post in the JihadWatch comments section.

I have a few suggestions.

One is to reduce the length of the article somewhat by organizing the memes into a smaller number of categories. If it is possible to organize these memes into about 7 categories, for psychological reasons it will be easier for people to remember them.

Second, you've obviously done your research, but I think you should add references to the relevant parts of the Islamic texts and Islamic laws that state the memes.

Third, I want to mention a specific reference regarding having large families in Islam. Clearly this is one of the most important memes for meme transmission. There are indirect instructions pertaining to this in the Quran (e.g., 4:3 polygyny, 2:223 your wives are a "tilth," etc.). However the direct instructions to have large families occur in the Hadith.

"Marry women who will love their husbands and be very prolific, for I wish you to be more numerous than any other people." --the prophet Mohammad, quoted in the Mishkatu 'l-Masabih, book xiiihttp://muslim-canada.org/marriage_dictionaryofislam.html

Sunan Abu Dawud, Book 11, Number 2045: “Narrated Ma'qil ibn Yasar: A man came to the Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) and said: I have found a woman of rank and beauty, but she does not give birth to children. Should I marry her? He said: No. He came again to him, but he prohibited him. He came to him third time, and he (the Prophet) said: Marry women who are loving and very prolific, for I shall outnumber the peoples by you.”

That was an outstanding read – I have read and studied some about Islam to better understand “the enemy” but this is the best explanation of the threat we face. I knew most of what you wrote but wasn’t able to articulate it well; maybe now I will be more so. I agree with Kab-bin-Ashraf that it would be nice if you could write a more concise version with references – I would carry it around like an evangelist with a pocket bible! I also wonder if there is a more easily grasped (or familiar) term that could be used instead of Meme to explain the pervasiveness and persistence of Islam. Not that it’s not a good term, just a little abstract for mass consumption. I’m not well-read enough to answer this question myself.

I married into a partially Muslim family (yes there are non-practicing Muslims out there) and even though she doesn’t call herself a Muslim, she still defends the “faith” because she was raised in a Muslim country (one of the only secular ones) and thinks it is peaceful and benign and in many ways better than Christianity because unfortunately she has seen her share of Christian hypocrites. I really need to arm myself with knowledge and references well to show her and others the real truth and I hope this and your study material will help.

One more thing: Anonymous said: “There is no way a collection of alien racial groups and their corresponding assortment of heritages, cultures, beliefs and social refineries herded into the one living space, can ever form a genuine or viable nation.” I disagree with him completely, as you do but I think a better example than your use of the Marines of why he is absolutely wrong is the great nation of America. It was formed exactly by joining a collection of disparate racial and cultural groups into one (albeit giant) living space that became the most viable nation that ever existed. But this was precisely because “multiculturalism” was not practiced. Disparate cultures (and races to a lesser extent initially) either put off their former cultures completely or merged their cultures into the “new culture” of America. The over-riding loyalty and love of country (America) was not from indoctrination (without) but from an overwhelming personal and familial willingness to be a part of a great “experiment” and promise of prosperity that was the American Dream and that formed its own culture and nation. Is there such a self-indoctrinating force now? Not really – it has to be fostered as an attitude set by policy that forces incorporation into country (without the negativity of fervent nationalism). There is no new great melting pot to allow the self-joining of cultures into something new and greater anymore (OK, it could be argued that the European Union is attempting this by a gradual cross-border economic co-mingling, though with little success – and this is still not creating something necessarily new). However, great cultures can assimilate new cultures, with both benefiting from the positives aspects of each (evolution if you will).

Yes, the weak-minded practice of tolerated (or now even encouraged) multiculturalism is a huge problem as you note and we must sound the trumpet against this. Cultures allowed to exist and thrive within a sovereign nation and not become assimilated and imbued with loyalty to their new host become a cancer from within (especially Islam - and I think cancer is a more appropriate metaphor than rabies as it can also be slow and surreptitious besides being rabidly overwhelming).

I see it happening in Europe where I live and America is not far behind. Our only hope is to become strong of character and devout in national and cultural identity (again without fervency) and not PC – Australia is a perfect example – they loudly proclaim and practice a “love it or leave it” policy of immigration (and deportation). If only our leaders (and I use that term loosely) would find the moral courage and do the same. It’s up to us, the people, to loudly proclaim that that is what we want before the thought police make it entirely impossible to speak out in a non-politically correct manner….

Brilliant article. I have been coming up to speed with topics concerning Islam over the last few months, and have been staggered by the evil genius of psychology at play.

Whilst a first class c**t and the single biggest man-made cause of human suffering and death ever, one has to grudgingly admire Mohammed's shrewd understanding of the human mind and how to harness it in the eternal propagation of both the Arab imperialistic empire as well as his personality cult

I wonder if there is another meme at play?

Not only is Allah the one true God, but Mohammed is his last prophet

Seems very devious. Designed to ensure that no corruption of the meme could subsequently take place

Great article. These same ideas can be applied to any religion including Christianity. It would be excellent to see a companion piece to this one which focuses on another religion. You can also use this idea to analyze how Jews in Israel justify on a religions basis the utter harm they do in confiscating land and property of those who do not share their memeplex. In my opinion the only way to liberate ourselves from being slaves to ideas is to question not only the beliefs of others but our own most cherished ideas as well. If you find it offensive for somebody to question a set of beliefs you hold dear then you may be the slave to a memeplex yourself.

-To Anonimous -It seems to me you just stumbled here and without trying to read or comprehend the meaning of the article above, just started slandering Israel and Jews.Meme number 6 !!!! Read that again !!!!

You are either a) a liar or b) a very lazy thinker. You really think those extremely specific memes apply to Christianity and Judaism? The logic implicit in your comment is "all belief systems are equally totalitarian and violent." Shall we count up the Jewish suicide bombers or the Christian countries which don't allow the building of other relgions' places of worship? Please...

Great article. I would add to number 7 by explaining how acceptance for polygamy creates a continous outer "push" in support of the meme since there aren't enough women in dar al islam to allow every muslim man to have four wives. Moreover, muslim men are specifically permitted to make wives or sexual slaves (i.e. right hand possessions) of the women of groups who have refused to submit/convert. Thus, the twin perogatives of polygamy and sexual enslavement of fallen enemies also encourage jihad and further support the meme. (The "sexual enslavement" perogtaive may have become too politically costly of late for widespread use, but it HAS seen recent application in places like Sudan. I would also argue that the abduction of coptic and hindu girls in places like Egypt and Pak, as well as the targeted rape of western women in places like Oz and the Scandi countries are a variant of this phenom.)

Citizen warrior,Please include in your analysis to all extremist be they Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. That is the only way you would seem fair and not a blinded bigot as you have shown in your blog.as the Quran says in Chapter 112 - "Keep your religion (belief) and we will keep ours"

Mohamed, if I was worried about any other kind of extremism, I would probably write about it, but not on this blog. The only kind of "extremism" I am concerned with is Islamic, and that's what I write about. Feel free to start your own blog on other kinds of extremists.

I'm actually not even worried about extremism. I am only concerned with Islamic supremacism. I'm concerned with the implementation, by small increments, of Sharia law in the West because non-Muslims are so uneducated about basic principles of Islam that they haven't been defending themselves against this relentless encroachment.

Can I ask you a question? How does not including issues involving extremism within other faiths and terrorist acts committed by followers of other faiths make Citizen Warrior look like a "blinded bigot?" This is a website with one purpose, to fight Islamic Jihad, by educating people, including terrorism with an Islamic bent. He's not denying that there are are violent extremists in any other major world religion. There are already entire websites devoted solely to criticizing Christianity or Christian Conservatives (the religious right), or Christian extremism. Is anyone who does that, or something similar, acting like a bigot, just because they don't devote some of their website to criticizing other faiths as well?

It will take another 15 years or so for the planet to wake up completely and as one to realize that islam is not a religion at all but a mass murdering cult started by a very very disturbed evil murderer and pedophile that has spiraled out of control. THE SOURCE OF THIS EVIL IS mecca AND THIS will have to be vaporized and all the mosques on the planet will have to be razed to the ground. All the korans and all their evil cult literature will have to be burnt and only then will peace come. About 2 billion muslims will have to be killed. There seems to be absolutely no option to this scenario. muslim means cult member and cults cannot co-exist with the rest of this planet. Think about it ...THEIR population is spiraling and our resources are dwindling and these insane cult members are looking FORWARD to Armageddon. We should give it to them. Let their evil day dreams come true. When will this start? When the courts start informing the general populace about this cult. Right now we are just unveiling the cult's face .... slowly slowly. soon the title of religion will be SHORN away from it and permanently labeled as a cult. The masquerade will be over and the real fight will start. As it is today the term muslim in the free world is a spittoon and an insult. Blood will have to flow....is there another way ? The gaya theory guy Lovestock says there should be 1 billion people max on this planet. Today there are nearly 7 billion... If we minus 2 billion muslims = 5 billion. 5 billion peaceful people on the planet will be a tight squeeze but it'll be cool. Let us cull these cult members from this lovely planet for their sakes as their evil book instructs them to be evil and not co-exist with the rest of the planet. let us send them on their way. Call it pest control or what you will but it will have to be done. Dark times are coming and come they will. A few years back thinking like this would have been ridiculous but with every passing day we encounter more and more of these mad people who refuse to live in the present and refuse to see the madness in their thoughts and actions. Locking them up means feeding them and spending resources that could be used for good otherwise. Science is anathema to them and the dirty years of their pedophiling and mass murdering leader is the only era to live in ...so be it..... let's get rid of them. Anyone can start an evil cult but everyone can stop it....if anyone has another option that would make more sense let me know. I'm not an Israeli but if anyone should start this mass cull it should be Israel because when the evil mad man was alive AND spewing at them they didn't knock him off and look what's happened. It's never too late to stamp out filthy evil. Never too late. We all, bar none will help the Israelis... we have to ....for our sakes and for the good of this planet. It is said that blood always flows where muslims go......soon blood will flow where muslims have gone but it will be muslim blood that will flow. Non-muslim Good blood will also flow in the fight back by evil but that is expected. We live in interesting times. Get ready boys and girls ....our grand-children will thank us BUT FIRST we have some sincere work to do even if it repulses us. SUCH IS LIFE. AFTER DARK COMES LIGHT AND ONLY AFTER islam IS SMASHED WILL COME PEACE FOR OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN. We have to make this happen.

Dear Citizen Warrior, I have sent your wonderful articles around to my friends and now Hotmail has blocked me from using their service. I suspect it is because they feel sharing information like this is a violation of terms (ie: hatred, racism, etc) however, I find your approach very hopeful and quite strongly in support of loving our fellow humans. As a nurse, I do this every day and appreciate your insightful and informative documents. I hope to be able to continue to read (after I set up a new email account!)and share your wisdom with family and friends.

Very interesting and well researched - just wanted to comment that anything which needs to be defended cannot pose an enduring threat. The need to defend is merely an expression of inherant weakness.. don`t panic :)

This analysis of Islam as a memeplex is magnificent. The role of the leftist memeplex in assisting the Islamic memeplex is however the critical one - we have masses of Western useful idiots amongst us - in our families, friends and colleagues! Mesmerised into stupidity they are more dangerous than the jihadists themselves.

Further on the leftist memeplex has anyone distilled it yet like this distillation of the Islamic memeplex? I think it spawned the politically correct memeplex (perhaps the West's true Achilles Tendon) which generates even more of Lenin's "useful idiots". This 'mind disease' has not yet significantly entrenched itself in other major populations like the Chinese and the Indians. Together they are about one third of the world's population, and the West needs to see them as critical allies. The dissonance between the West and Russia also needs to desist - they too are a critical ally.

Epiphyte, I have no doubt that Muhammad was a genius in his understanding of the primal instincts of the human male. There is this sexual undercurrent to Islam which you have captured in your article - there is no sin in the sexual enslavement of the fallen infidel women and thus it becomes a major incentive for war. The wives of these armies of rapists have to accept that this is the right of their men if they wish to reach heaven. Today the Geneva Convention makes rape a war crime so even the politically correct have not yet been mesmerised into such a deeper level of stupidity - but the promise of this reward once the globe has been conquered remains. During WW2 the French General Juin performed a war crime against Italian populations by promising a 50 hour carte blanche to the Moroccan Goumiers if they could break through the German lines set up around Monte Cassino. Not only was there rampant rape but a local priest was sodomised and executed on the altar and bestiality with a donkey was also reported! Until then the Allies had denied the Goumiers their natural war trophies.

The Cairo Declaration of Human Rights In Islam (CDHRI) is the Islamic response to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). The former affirms Islamic Shari'ah as its sole source. This is a warning to the international community at large - via the United Nations it needs to ensure that the legal definition of human right abuses and war crimes that the non Islamic international community subscribes to (about three quarters of the world's population) is not undermined. Currently war crimes committed by groups such as Hamas and the Taliban are not being documented with any serious intent of future prosecution. Any suicide bombing of a non military target like a market or place of worship is a war crime and those responsible for it should be held accountable at some future time. Execution of civilians is but another.

The Arab League is now calling for a no fly zone over Gaza. Hamas has provoked the Israelis by firing rockets into civilian areas (a war crime), Israel has responded via airstrikes, the Arab League now tries to compromise the West by having it not support a no fly zone over Gaza. The Hamas war crimes of firing rockets into civilian areas will be conveniently bypassed by the Dhimwits. One has to hand it to the Islamists and the Arab League - it was a very clever deception in calling for the no fly zone over Libya!

I was not sure what to make of the French burqa ban because it goes against my libertarian views. Women should be able to wear whatever they wish. Then I realised why the sentences for women wearing the burqa are so mild. The real intent of the law is to apprehend those who are forcing women to wear the burqa! After all forcing a woman to wear a burqa against her free will is abuse of her human rights as per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In principle no less a crime than wife beating or marital rape! The French have been very clever!

Those of you who have read the Jungle Book would know of Kaa, the giant snake that mesmerises its prey into submission.

You Tube is full of videos of Kaa in the animation movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT5Lnv8LQks&feature=related

When one considers otherwise rational, intelligent and educated Western people who dhimwittedly deny human right abuses, religious cleansing and perhaps even the beginning of genocide in some instances (the violence against the Iraqi Christians) because of political correctness then metaphorically speaking there is a Kaa at work in their minds.

The concept of a "Kaa of Islam" could be useful in trying to understand how they are so bewitched.

This facet of the article is of interest to me because, as an Orthodox Christian, we also put great importance on the "fidelity" aspect of maintaining our own "memeplex". In fact, our own St. John of Damascus regarded Muhammad as having been a heretic against Christianity. Indeed, Muhammad took various Christian and Jewish ideas, understood them incorrectly and got the stories wrong, then put his own twist on them. So we regard Muhammad not as the "last prophet," but as a false prophet.

In my experience, yes, I do consider our own memeplex to be good for me and the other individuals who practice it.

We are not "pacifist" in the sense of refusing to have a military or police. That said, in contrast to Islam, we have NO doctrinal support for starting wars, for using violence to spread our faith, or for punishing or harming "unbelievers" in any way.

We are required to carry the Good News to all nations; unlike Islam, though, we must only offer our faith, never try to force it on anybody. Jesus requires us, in the Bible, to "not be ashamed of Him" - we must be honest about what we believe. We must proclaim our faith in words and deeds, so that others can see what it is, and then have the option to accept it if (and only if) they are willing.

De-legitimize Islam by pointing out how they hijacked everything from the Abrahamic story from the jews; they reek blasphemy by saying Jesus was muslim; and people's natural repulsion towards abhorrent sexual behavior in that Muhammed married Aisha at 6 and consummated the marriage when she was 9 years old. Muslims have betrayed Allah by worshipping Muhammed, a mental icon that challenges Allah's unicity. Only through violence will Islam be able to convert the billions in India and China alone. All empires crumble from the rot within. And the absolute worst part is that we don't have access to their women. I'm not being flippant. There's nothing more primal than the procreative drive, and the more you can't have something, the more you want it.

Evil can not be defeated with more evil, what you are suggesting is a totalitarian nation state model based in religious, ethnic and cultural uniformity, pretty much like the Nazi Germany or the Spain of the Catholic Kings, and indeed your anti marxist extreme hate sound very, very similar to antileftist nazi propaganda,may I remind you that the Nazis used to say that Marxism was product of a Jewish-masonic conspiration to control the world and destroy so called traditional western values? I think that both Islam and Marxism(and also Christian dominionism) are totalitarian ideologies which are destructive precisely because are intolerant and opressive, and quite frankly your totalitarian model does not sounds better than them. What Citizen warrior defends is a multicultural and pluralistic society based on mutual respect amongst different religions and ideologies, the problem with Islam is that it does not repect other faiths and engages in gross double standards because of its supremacist agenda, so as far as I understand, the counter jihad movement is against Islam not because it is different but because it is intolerant and supremacist and wants to subjugate the non muslims. You seem to be against Islam simply because it is different or alien to your own totalitarian memeplex and therefore you perceive it as competitor, so I suppose you are a totalitarian and far right Christian conservative. Since I reject any kind of totalitarism and bigotry I have to disagree with your views too Sr.

The reason Islam seems to work so well (despite its inclination to divide, rather than to unite) is that is plays on the traits of ignorance, fear, disenfranchisement, hate... the most base human characteristics. The world largely populated by people who fall into one of all of these sub-categories.

This is also why Islam agminates the developing and Third World in a far more pronounced fashion than it does the West: poor, uneducated people are far more susceptible to their prejudices being piqued.

The neologism 'memeplex' is a fine buzz term, but it's merely connoting a concept that's been true of any religious system for time immemorial--religion plays on peoples' vulnerabilities for the furtherment of its bent. Thus, a religion more geared towards these base foibles will naturally be more successful in its endeavours.

Like a disease: the more virulent it is, the more it takes over (until cured or excised).

If you're a Buddhist sinner, the custom is to spend some of your wealth constructing a shrine. And it's not as if Buddhists behave so differently from Muslims; you cannot build a church in Burma, in Sri Lanka there have been riots directed at the small Muslim community, and the admittedly peaceful early 20th century Tibet was nevertheless patriarchal, strict, and backwards. Jews once had their Zealots - and persecuted the early Christians, and until 400 years ago Christianity was pretty intolerant - and in some cases aggressive.

I liked your article a lot, but thought that some of the interpretation of Islamic scripture was dodgy, that the end result of your thinking is to be prejudiced against Muslims (despite the admirable caveats I noticed), and that it remains to be proven how far your theory is true.

But I stress that despite my discomfort with the sources you used I still really liked your take on the concept of religion as a meme, and found the article thought provoking.

As to Buddhism, it may not scripturally be aggressive, but since Buddhists have done plenty of bad stuff, this could be taken to show the truth of anonymous' comment, that actually SOME aspects of Islam potentially give license to darker aspects of human nature - but not necessarily.

Nice blog. Even followers with decent reasoning skills might not like their religion being "singled" out. But all monotheistic religions with an emphasis on proselytization inevitably being memes and cult.

Also, include some more characteristics of meme. Common dress code, attire, imitating meme founder, borrowed meme terms taking over language and greetings.

To view Islam through the lens of meme theory is absolutely perfect. Citizen Warrior, you did a superb job of explaining both the theory and its application.

I find it interesting that some commentators (evidently of a religious/reactionary bent) seem anxious to paint certain left-wing memes (Marxism, multi-culturalism, the PC mentality, etc.) as co-conspirators in laying fertile ground for benefit of the Islamic memoplex.

In truth, I think guilt, for laying of this fertile ground, lies much more strongly at the feet of theism itself.

It is theism in general, after all, that teaches there is a tyrant (though sometimes otherwise portrayed as a loving) god. It is theism in general that teaches one of our most important duties is to believe in this god. It is theism in general that teaches faith (believing even if and when all facts do not seem to line up authentically in support) is a supreme and wonderful virtue, while to doubt and/or question is at least a vice, if not outright a sin. It is theism that teaches us to trust in the authority of god's self-appointed "representatives," to humble our own intellect and reason, and to revere archaic writings that were produced by ancient and extraordinarily superstitious primitives. It is likewise theism in general that teaches us to abjure this life as a sojurn that is relatively brief and insignificant when compared to the magnitude of an eternity whose prospect, for pleasure or pain, is determined by how well we believe in that great tyrant above.

In short, the memoplex of Islam finds fertile ground within the same base memoplex as is openly celebrated among Western religionists.

I will add more.

By continually doing their utmost to celebrate these base memes, Western religionists, at the least, give comfort to the enemy. But, more than that, they create an environment where the essential memoplex foundation stands seemingly without question. No Islamist feels need to question these foundational matters, or to in any manner second guess them, for they are bases that all (even the infidel Westerners) seemingly embrace.

Of course, it's not true that all Westerners embrace these base memes, but Western religionists have campaigned hard to create an external appearance of such (and have succeeded to an extent that is at least persuasive to a receptive external audience; it's part of what the cultural wars have been about).

So (and from a Western perspective), I would argue it is our own religionists who hold great guilt for fostering the base memoplex foundation on which the greater pinnacle of Islam feeds.

Given this as my perspective, though I salute you, Citizen Warrior, for fighting against Islam, I target my own fight against the deeper enemy. The deeper enemy is not Islam. It is not Christianity. It is not Judaism, Bhudism, Hinduism or even theism in general. Nor is it Marxism, Communism, Fascism or any other wacked political bent. The deeper enemy is irrationalism, and in whatever guise it happens to be dressed.

Among the contrary memes that have benefited humanity is the one that says it is good to question and doubt. Another is the one that says it's important to amend one's conclusions to make them fit the evidence, as opposed to seeking to amend the evidence to make it fit one's conclusions. Still another is the meme that says, to have any hope of succeeding in this endeavor, one must submit his conclusions to scrutiny, be honest when the evidence does not authentically line up, and never, ever conclude on the basis of faith. There are many others, and to champion these is the place where I choose to fight.

It is interesting that devout Christians and Muslims seem resolutely united on one matter in particular: it is their agreed-upon hatred of, disdain for, perhaps even fear of the great and mighty atheist.

How interesting is this.

And, it's telling, too.

It is very similar to where two different groups are guiltily addicted to adverse drugs, one group to its preferred type and the other to its differently preferred type. They may war with one another over their differing preferences, while nevertheless taking comfort in the fact each at least salutes what is at heart the same fundamental indulgence (notwithstanding however differently it may happen to be manifest in each instance). The atheist is like the teetotaler, standing on the outside of all this, immune from the base addiction, an unwelcome shining light that shows, in fact, humans can (and perhaps should) rise above their chemical (irrational/delusional) dependencies.

Beyond this similarity, like drug dependency, irrationalism is the handmaiden of many other harms. How ironic that, while a meme in Islam would commend killing all Christians and others (if unwilling to convert to Islam), one of the correspondents here (in virtually mirror fashion) recommends genocide against (extermination of) some two billion Muslims. Really? Seriously? Yes, the admonition for this is just a few comments above this one. Also, other posts (even further above) seemed to at least hint in the same direction, though without having the evident chutzpah to state the sentiment outright.

Anyhow, I'd certainly not be alone, as an audience to such posts, in guessing they likely came from devout and right-wing Christians. So, again, it would seem there is a parallel. The irrationalism of Islam (especially when relatively unchecked by some moderating doses of reason) yields toward extreme, unjustified and massive recommendations for violence. Ditto for any irrationalism of Christianity, or any other sect, or even of any political bent (e.g., fascism, Stalinism, etc.).

All these irrationalisms (bad memes?) are the enemy (and how pitiful it is when when any one slaps blame on any other, as though it is not itself part of the same fundamental enterprise). All, ultimately, are enemies of human happiness. Only reason is our friend.

Something else .. Islam appears to fully embrace behaviours that lead to and propagate pathologies such as narcissism and psychopathy which help to spread the meme of 'submission' through cyclic abuse. Study them, you will recognize them in people you know.

We humans are accustomed to viewing ourselves as somewhat exalted. From a religious side, typical thinking is that God made the animals, plants and everything else specifically for our benefit and use. Even from the non-religious side, there is often celebration for the fact we humans, built by nature, have indeed become conscious of nature, of our place within it, and also have grown to be extraordinarily powerful in terms of our ability to manipulate its elements.

I like how Citizen Warrior’s perspective rather turns such exaltation on its head. Read his original post. He talks about memes – mere memes – using us, using us for their simple, singular and very primitive reproductive purpose. We are the instruments that are used. We are the tools. We are the slaves. We are the consumed.

It is a rather revolutionary way to look at it, but it’s not entirely new. For some time, in the biological world, there has been a very parallel notion. Referring to genes rather than memes, there is the concept that, rather than our biological genes (long segments of DNA that form the recipe for our creation) being our servants (i.e., the tools we use to make copies of ourselves), the situation is actually quite the reverse from that. To be more specific, we (our bodies, our minds, etc.) are the tools our genes use to make copies of themselves. It’s this latter view that, in the long view, is without doubt the much more correct one.

No right-thinking person has suggested, of course, that either genes or memes make use of us in any kind of purposeful, deliberate and/or "conscious" sense (such as when a human "designs" to make use of some other object), but (and certainly) use can be made quite absent any such deliberation or conscious intent.

To state it more fully, there are no “purposes” as such (at least as harbored by genes or memes) in any of their replication. They are just patterns – patterns that happen to exist within environments that are readily poised toward the obligement of making copies thereof. And it’s a very simple algorithm. Any pattern that is configured in such manner as to make its environment more prone to making more copies of itself, without any other factor intruding of any kind, that is the pattern that you’ll tend to see more copies of in that environment. This is a law of nature that, virtually by the power of logic, cannot be avoided (thank you Charles Darwin for showing us this).

And, thanks to you Citizen Warrior (thanks, in particular, to the way you expressed it), it’s easy for us to see that we humans are part of the environment in which some memes prosper, and some do not. Or, putting it more in the way you expressed it, we are used by the memes that have infected our own minds.

I like this perspective, in part, because there is an obvious and definite accuracy in it.

When a person is infected with and suffering from harmful genes (e.g., such as those contained within an invading and pathogenic virus, bacteria or fungus), it is not common that we feel sympathy toward the infecting agent. Certainly, we do not tell the victim that we “respect” the fact he is infected. We do not enact legislation to give the state of his infection protection and deference. Quite ever so much to the contrary, we find ourselves anxious to do everything we can to help our friend rid himself of the harming infection. We don’t respect for the fact that he’s infected; we pity him, and we support public policies that are aimed toward preventing his infection from spreading to others. Perhaps most especially, we seek to inoculate ourselves and those whom we dearly love. And, if we could, we’d eradicate the pathogen.

At first blush, it might seem we should treat bad memes in exactly the same way we treat bad genes (it should not need clarification, but, nevertheless I will provide it: by “bad” I mean genes or memes that harm our interests). Of course (and in general), we do not.

Instead, we do in fact give bad memes legislative support and protections (among other things).

Why the difference?

It would seem bad memes have a special ability that bad genes (in particular, those within infecting pathogens) typically do not: they make the infected individual (i.e., the “host”) feel glad and happy for the fact he is infected (infected and “used,” I might add).

Quite obviously, this factor makes bad memes into much more difficult (may I say “subversive”) characters.

Regardless, whether more difficult or not, I have never been one who says to a bad-meme-infected individual: “I respect your belief.” Candidly, I think that sentiment is worse than silly. It is pernicious.

Just as there are gene segments that help us and gene segments that hurt us, surely, there are likewise good memes and bad memes. We should never shirk from the task and duty of making our best and considered sober judgments, seeking to accurately distinguish one from the other. It's too bad that, generally, that task is considered unfashionable.

I've read the same concept elsewhere, that of religion as memeplex, but with Christianity thrown in. So it's a double-edged sword. But it seems that the memeplex of either religion is spread most effectively by the misfits who take the religion way too literally. You've all watched movies with people that just don't get or won't see the allegorical meaning. Those are the ones. At the same time, they also take the opposing religion too literally and won't admit there is deeper meaning. I guess the 'deeper meaning' followers are moderates. But, yeah, the strict rituals of Islam produce far more people of 'broken spirit' through abuse of women and children. Broken mothers make broken children. And it cycles on.

We received the following email a few days ago, and it contains a good point worth sharing.

I just finished reading, for probably the 20th time, CW's invaluable article, The Terrifying Brilliance of the Islamic Memeplex. Today's re-read sparked a thought of a possible addition to entry number 7. In fact, I think an entire separate article could be written on this premise. (If CW has already written such an article, I have missed it and my apologies.)

Entry number 7 concerns the Koran's allowing Muslims to have up to four wives and encouraging Muslims to marry widows, and my thought is this: These two provisions not only help guarantee a steady supply of offspring, they also ensure a steady supply of young men without wives. IMO a significant source of Islam's power amongst young men of fighting age is that by denying them normal sexual relations, their powerful sex drive is then available to be channeled/sublimated into aggression — aggression in which success is rewarded with sex. If they die they get into heaven for sex with virgins, and if they don't die there is a good possibility of obtaining sex by raping captive women.

It also helps that the position of women in Islam nearly eliminates the other (i.e. non-sexual) natural moderating influences of women on male aggression.

CW, both your site and your book have greatly assisted me in encouraging non-Muslims to learn more about Islam, and your site is always the first one I recommend to those who want to read further. Your work is vital and much appreciated!

Regards,

L. Evans

P.S. Your article, How to Resist Islamic Encroachment and Still Be Happy made me realize that I'm not the only one who gets overwhelmed by what is happening in the world and who needs to take a break from the news. Thank you.

Very illuminating article...damn didn't realize until I read some of the points that some of the meme's I carry have let my own defenses down to this threat. Was hoping you could edit your article to reference the verses/passages in the koran that match up with memes...I'd like to hit those first when studying it. I remember doing this for the bible when I referenced my arguments in a philosophy class I took ages ago...still helps to this day when I get bible-thumpers on my doorstep...Thanks for putting this info out there...Ill be referencing your link now whenever the chance presents itself.

A most powerful memeplex is the law that says a Malay (Malaysian and Singaporean constitution) practices Islam. Thus, apostate laws are being imposed to punish anyone leaving the religion. Those Malays who leave Islam not longer are considered Malays. So, we have closet believers who do not reveal their their conversion to other religions. They remain Muslims by customs on the outside but may be Christian on the inside. Malay Christians are persecuted with death threats and imprisonment. They may lose their property and their jobs, children and are not allowed to marry another person from another faith.

Index for the Quran

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If you have a traditional Qur'an, get a PDF document to help you read the chapters in the order they were revealed rather than the traditional order (which is the longest to the shortest chapter): Click here.

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Some people say Islam is a religion of peace and that Islam has been hijacked by extremists, terrorists, and stealth jihadists who twist and distort the peaceful teachings of the Quran and quote it out of context.

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The general confusion about the nature of Islam makes us collectively unable to make informed decisions. You can help end this confusion by reading the Quran. Stop believing what other people say and find out for yourself.

Article Spotlight

It illustrates the Islamic Supremacist vision by showing the similarity between what happened in the movie, Pleasantville, and what devout fundamentalist Muslims are trying to create in Islamic states like Syria, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia (and ultimately everywhere in the world).